Even though we had officially closed the project with our ’5 Years of G.Hack’ celebration back in April, we still had to sift through the boxes of all the materials we have used over the years and decide what gets recycled in the workshop and what goes straight into the bin!

So, finally in October, after FLO performance at ALL2016, which myself and Magda did with our colleagues from University of the Arts (Maria and Ximena) remotely from QMUL music studios, we finally found some time to go through everything. Whilst opening the boxes and rummaging through wires, Arduino boards, cables, electronic components, rolls or tape and other knick-knacks we used on daily basis for our various hacks, the memories of good times kept flooding back and we started reminiscing and laughing about various things we did over the years like …

'Ugly' teapot for testing SMLT, that was superseded by a beautiful glass one

As Katja was also packing her office and leaving for Singapore to start an amazing post-doctoral research job (well done Katja!!!), we thought it would be nice to have one last dinner (with whoever is in town) and say one last farewell!

With Pollie relocating to University of Sussex, Kavin to University of Surrey, Sonia to Victorian College of Arts in Melbourne, Alice to Nottingham, Berit to Berlin, Magda to Warsaw etc. etc. (you get the picture!), it was a miracle we managed to get anyone to join myself and Katja but Mi was still in town (waiting for her VIVA – which she has passed with flying colours) and Ioana (who wanted to become a member of G.Hack but then got busy with work) was around too and so the 4 of us had some amazing Persian and Afgan food at our usual spot – Ariana restaurant near Mile End! Good times!!! And we will definitely have to have a ‘repeat’ when Katja comes back to town!

The last supper at Ariana (Katja, Ioana, Nela & Mi)

After Dinner we went back to Katja’s office to pick up some stuff and give Ioana her ‘honorary’ G.Hack certificate and mug for all the years she has supported the project!

They say ‘time flies when you’re having fun’, and the past 5 years with G.Hack have certainly flown by! As our members were slowly finishing their PhD’s and starting their new adventures (in the UK as well as worldwide), we decided to have one last event to celebrate all the exhibitions, conferences, talks, workshops and public engagement activities we did since establishing G.Hack in 2011. We also wanted to thank all the AWESOME PEEPS involved in G.Hack over the past 5 years as well as all the AWESOME PEEPS supporting G.Hack project in various ways (from funding our activities and inviting us to share our project with the general public to advising us and supporting us relentlessly!).

And what better way to do just that, than to invite everyone who contributed to the project to travel with us down the 5-year long memory lane, as we remember with fondness all the fun we had in G.Hack since 2011!

Nela taking us all 'down the memory lane' and presenting '5 Years of G.Hack'

For all these very special people on this very special occasion, we felt a special ‘THANK YOU’ present was a must, so Katja expertly designed Certificates of Awesomeness (yes, that’s right, AWESOMENESS!) and G.Hack mugs (with photos of different projects we did over the years) so we can give these out to everyone who was able to join us on that Wednesday afternoon (and of course, find a way to get it to the awesome peeps who were not able to come).

... as do the Certificates of Awesomeness (this one is going to Magda, when she is back in London for her VIVA!)

Katja is going down the list of peeps and writing names on mugs and certificates ...

... which erm ... took a while

After the presentation, we continued catching up with everyone who came to the event over some very nice food and drinks courtesy of the School of EECS (a BIG THANK YOU to the Head of School, Geraint Wiggins, for approving the expenditure for this!).

Catching up over food and drinks

At the very last minute, we remembered to get the camera out and take a photo of the ‘last peeps standing’ so here it is …

In June of 2015, we received an invite to present G.Hack project at the ‘Leading Together in the Digital Economy’ event in London and join the panel of distinguished guests (Hamed Haddadi, Sarah Sharples, Sarah Martindale and Helen Thornham) chaired by Andrew Greenman, to discuss a variety of topics from ‘expectations and realities for early career academic in the Digital Economy’ to ‘succeeding in academic fields which are largely male dominated’. Needless to say, it was a very interesting debate!

Digital Shoreditch 2015 opened up with a roaster of interesting exhibitions, workshops and talks on Monday 11 May including the panel talk: Hackathons-Grassroots Activism or Digital Sweatshops? chaired by Becky Stewart (ex-QMUL G.Hack alumni, turned Codasign co-founder and book author!). The panel speakers included no less impressive, resourceful and full of amazing ideas: Ruth Catlow (Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Furtherfield online community for arts, technology and social change since 1997, now also a public gallery in the heart of Finsbury Park, North London), Gregor Engelmann (PhD student at University of Nottingham and a UK leader for Major League Hacking, the official sanctioning body for the world’s largest student hackathon league – a very busy world traveller indeed), Gerard Briscoe (interdisciplinary researcher mixing computer science, art & humanities, business, social and natural sciences – in other words a man who can do research on just about anything!) and myself, Nela Brown (representing QMUL, CogSci and talking about G.Hack’s ‘grand plan’ of encouraging more women to join hackathons by teaching them how to hack through workshops like ‘Learn to Hack Web Audio API’ we did at Sonar, and Music Tech Fest 2014 Paris in 2014).

A lively discussion spurred by Becky’s thought-provoking questions covered a variety of topics from diversity and creche facilities at hackathons (Becky), alternatives to 24-hour tech hackathons being 24-day, 24-month or even 24-year art hackathons (Ruth) and applying hackathon model to devising theatre performances (Gerard) to amazing perks and prizes one can enjoy by attending a BMW’s Car Hackathon (Gregor). As a follow up to G.Hack’s workshops at Sonar and MTF, I threw a spanner into works by mentioning the new EU funded project #MusicBricks, organized by our friends at Sonar/UPF and MTF (amongst others), which will aim to incubate the best hacks from Music Tech Fest and Barcelona Music Hack Day and enable hackers to take their products to market! (If you haven’t already signed up for this, your first chance is MTF Scandi happening 29-31 May in Sweden followed by Barcelona Music Hack Day 17-19 June).

Digital Shoreditch 2015 continues until Sunday 24 May and there is plenty to hear, learn and see especially in the basement of Shoreditch Town Hall where you can find the amazing installations conjured up by the QMUL Media & Arts Technology peeps (for which the entry is entirely free – so really no excuse!).

After doing the Web Audio API workshop for female hackers at MTF in Paris, G.Hack troops Nela, Katja, Magda and Patrizia joined the other hackers at MTF Hack Camp and found out about the YourFry digital storytelling challenge. We decided to build on the Web Audio API hack to create a drum machine that people can play on tablets and smartphones. Rani and Stacey joined us for a bit (Rani made the photo grid for the drum machine) but as we had to leave Paris early (to get back to our PhD research and thesis writing) we only managed to finish the hack and submit it to YourFry website a week later. As it turned out, the most challenging part of making the FryMachine Hack was trying to edit the video footage on iMovie! Apparently to delete a portion of footage you select it and than choose ‘reject’ ??? (memo to self: must have words with Apple peeps about this one!)

Some photos of making of the FryMachine Hack video are below. We will upload the hack to QMUL server and post the link to it soon, so you can play with it on your tablet or smartphone ! To all of the folks out there who might be appalled by our iMovie video editing skills (or there lack of), we suggest you treat the FryMachine Hack video as just one of the ‘hacks’!

G.Hack troops returned from another successful workshop taking place at IRCAM as part of Music Tech Fest 21-23 November. We taught a group of women from different tech/ music backgrounds (and countries) how to hack Web Audio API to make a soundmap of Centre Pompidou, got the ‘thumbs up’ from the participants and the MTF organizers (so another collaboration might just be on the cards!). A BIG THANK YOU goes to our supervisors (Tony Stockman, Nick Bryan-Kinns and Simon Dixon), the amazing Mark Plumbley and the QMUL Platform Grant panel who approved the G.Hack travel funding application!

And what can we say about the G.Hack troops Patrizia,Katja, Magdalena and Nela ??? Well .. they certainly went ‘above and beyond’ by working at evenings and weekends to make this workshop a great success and to ‘represent’ QMUL as a place of female tech-talent ! (hmm this sounds like a title for a TV show, maybe a project for 2015 ?). Magda discovered her passion for teaching coding (so you might find her following in her father’s footsteps when she submits her PhD). Katja discovered hacking into Leapmotion and Web Audio API can be pretty addictive (and is probably poking around the code right now!). Patricia discovered her expertise in French and coding are better than she thought they were and Nela discovered her greatest talent might just be in “public speaking” having presented not once but twice in the course of the weekend (sounds like she might be following in her father’s footsteps too!).

Whilst the future of the MTF G.Hack team is slowly unravelling we leave you with some photos from the event (including the amazing G.Hack poster designed by our colleagues at MTF in French and English!)

Nela presenting G.Hack project

Magda doing a last run-through the new coding slides

Sorting wi-fi for the workshop with IRCAM/MTF peeps

Magda, Katja and Patrizia troubleshooting local hosting on Windows 8

G.Hack workshop in full swing with Magda and Katja helping participants troubleshoot

Two types of questions emerged at the end of the talk: the ones about the code stability and the usefulness of Web Audio API and the ones about the ‘women only’ hack workshop. We had time to answer a few of them after the talk and the rest were discussed over a few beers at a local pub

After noticing the low number of female hackers at Music Hack Days, G.Hack troops Patrizia, Magda, Katerina and Nela decided to put together some fun activities for Sónar+D(Barcelona’s 21st International Festival of Advanced Music and New Media Art) festival including Learn to Hack Web Audio API with G.Hack workshop (to teach female attendees of some hacking skills and encourage them to participate in future Music Hack Days!) and Women Hackers panel with inspirational women founders, leaders, researchers and advocates of cyberfeminism, hacktivism, open culture and free tech education (more info and photos below!).

Workshop: Learn to Hack Web Audio API with G.Hack

In the workshop, participants will learn about the culture of software and hardware hacking through short demos and examples, before moving on to using Web Audio API straight through their web browser! The Web Audio API is a high-level JavaScript API for processing and synthesizing audio in web applications. It includes capabilities found in modern game audio engines and some mixing, processing and filtering tasks found in modern desktop audio production applications. Participants will use this API to build simple synths and combine them with other musical feature extraction APIs to make some cool hacks! (The workshop is aimed at women beginners with no previous programming experience, though all levels are welcome).

Talk: Women Hackers

Panel speakers:

Nela Brown, Chair of G.Hack

Alex Haché, member of Dones Tech a group of Social Research dedicated to creating digital content, media production and communication. Haché is doctor of economy, cyberfeminist, hacktivist, developer of technopolitical projects, researcher of ICT for public good.

Klau Kinki, part of Pechblenda LAB, an experimental laboratory where learning arises from raw experimentation and the self-formation where free knowledge emerges.

Amélie Anglade, member of OpenTechSchool a movement aiming to offer free tech education. Co-founder of Hackership, a full-time 3-month hacker school programme located in Berlin and based on the values of OpenTechSchool. Her work focuses on supporting hackers of all backgrounds to learn and grow, and also she does music information retrieval and recommendation for a living. She presents herself as a music hacker at heart.

ps Amélie is also ex-QML PhD student (C4DM research group) as well as one of the WISE@QMUL founding committee members, so a super woman indeed !!!

Nela Brown, Pechblenda LAB, Amélie Anglade & Alex Haché

G.Hack team brainstorming workshop structure at QMUL

Katerina and Magdalena discussing mathematical models and how best to teach the coding part of the workshop

Day before the workshop: Patricia, Magdalena and Katerina with G.Hack poster

Nela and Ursula (nominees for Leader Award and Lifetime Achievement Award) had the great honour of meeting all the other incredible nominees as well as shake hands and chat with the amazing HRH The Princess Royal (who is a big supporter of WISE!)

They managed to bring one award ‘home’ (Nela got the Highly Commended WISE Leader Award) and are looking forward to more awards being given to QMUL next year, flagging up the good work female students and members of staff are doing with the invaluable support from their departments !

A BIG THANK YOU goes out to Bertille Calinaud and Peter McOwan for doing all the nomination paperwork and to Prof Ursula Martin (an amazing supporter of WISE@QMUL and G.Hack activities from the very beginning), who miraculously managed to raise funds for a QMUL dedicated table ! What a star !

The Highly Commended WISE Leader Award, was given in the recognition of all the amazing things Nela has managed to achieve with G.Hack, WISE@QMUL and Flossie and a HUGE THANK YOU goes out to all the ladies who supported Nela over the past 3 years and whose dedication and commitment to these projects greatly contributed to this award !

Over the past 3 years, G.Hackers have been involved in many public engagement activities, but this one was special for 2 reasons:

For the very first time we conducted a pilot research study around the audience interaction with Light Touch (to inform the next iteration of the installation to be exhibited in 2014)

We secured the funding for ALL FOUR authors of the installation to travel to Marseille, attend the conference talks and concerts and network with the conference attendees !

For Patricia (who recently submitted her MA thesis) this was the first experience of attending an academic conference (and got her thinking about the way forward academically as well as artistically). For the rest of us, it was the first ‘research in the wild’ experience with G.Hack installation at an international conference (and hopefully one of many more to come!)

A SPECIAL MERCI BEAUCOUP goes out to the wonderful CMMR2013 organisers from CNRS-LMA who bent all sorts of rules to get us all there: Richard Kronland-Martinet, Charles Gondre, Gaëtan Parseihian, Olivier Derrien, Alain Rimeymeille and the many other CNRS-LMA staff who really looked after us during the conference, including the cafeteria ladies who kept us going by giving us free coins to use in the coffee machine (a proper espresso after lunch makes all the difference !)

A SUPER SPECIAL HOLA goes out to the amazing G.Hack troops: Katja, Laurel and Patrizia who made this conference ‘road trip’ absolutely unforgettable !

About

G.Hack is a collective of female researchers within the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London. The group is focused on sharing knowledge and developing interactive media projects.